Magazine

It is tempting to assess the modern debate over Social Security according to what any proposed changes will do for each of us personally. But many people, if not most, want a more principled approach to considering what, if anything, needs to be reformed. To these I suggest that there is a solid civ

Charitable appeals reach their full force across the nation about now, as the asking season roars in like a winter gale. Yuletide and year-end tax considerations collide to make a climate perfect not only for marketing U.S. charities but also for the cottage industry of donor guidance that seems to

Many Catholics, perhaps especially among the clergy, continue to be dismayed by the 1994 New York Times survey, according to which over half the Catholics who attend Mass weekly said that they believed that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are strictly the symbolic presence of Christ. (For a rece

It is a truism that Americans spend more than we need to and consume more than we have to. But doesn’t it seem that our desire to consume superfluous goods has lately grown to alarming proportions? The other day, for example, I caught a TV commercial for Fit. In case you’ve not yet been

Christians, Muslims in Bethlehem Hold March for PeaceFor the first time in almost two months Manger Square and the streets of Bethlehem were filled with people after dark as several hundred people participated in a candlelight march to protest Israeli-Palestinian clashes. In the last few months Beth

Everyone knows Christmas is about giving, and who could have any problem with an annual holiday centered on gifts? In a booming economy when consumers are spending, there are no losers; everyone gives, receives and feels good. The atmosphere saturated with preternaturally familiar sights and sounds,

Forgive my having recourse just aboveto the legalistic idiom. Forgivemy having chosen to pursue a measuredargument, and in such lax verse. Forgiveas well my penchant for ironic tone,for all my insufficiencies—those fewcommitted here, the many others—there.  And now that you are in t